In the final two corners of the final lap of Sunday‘s race at Watkins Glen, Kevin Harvick ran out of fuel, narrowly failing to get 59 laps out of his final tank of gas.
Though Joey Logano inherited the lead and won the race, with Harvick finishing third, the driver of the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet is maintaining an extremely positive outlook as the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup approaches.
“I thought I’d done a pretty good job of saving fuel under the caution (that preceded a 30-lap green-flag run to the finish),” Harvick said. “Really, I was just running as fast as I needed to, to protect the lead there as I was in front of the No. 20 (Matt Kenseth). And once the No. 22 (Logano) got there, I had to pick up the pace just a little bit.
“But all in all, our Budweiser/Jimmy John’s team did a great job today, and we were in position to have a win; two corners away. But that’s just kind of how the middle of this season has gone. We’ve had really fast cars, but the circumstances have just gotten the best of us. So, hopefully we’re saving that up for the last 10 weeks.”
Harvick, the reigning series champion, has no worries about the speed of his cars.
“Our cars are faster than pretty much everybody else’s every week,” he asserted. “The circumstances have definitely bit us quite a few times. But all in all, if you have the fastest car and you keep running in the top five and leading laps, eventually you’re going to wear them down.”
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